by Mac a'Bhaird

Created on: January 27, 2009

How I discovered classical music

Seventeen years ago, on 27 January 1992, my mother died. She died almost six months from the time she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. During those six months my sister and I were very much aware of the inevitable, although our father stayed in denial the whole time.

She was a remarkable woman. I won't go into it except to say that I recall her cheery voice every time she answered the telephone. It was New Years Day and my mother was in the hospital taking a series of chemo treatments. I was there visiting when the phone rang and she answered it in her usual cheery voice and twinkle in her eyes, Happy New Year'. I knew it was most likely not going to be a happy year. Twenty seven days later, she passed away.

So my bereavement, which had really already started four to five months prior when the reality hit me, began its descent to a depth I cannot describe. I was waylaid. I wasn't at all myself, and so a lot of things in business, and life in general became affected. One thing after another went wrong. I couldn't get a hold of myself, I felt dispossessed.

No doubt I was feeling sorry for myself. I felt like life had been incredibly cruel to me. Some people that I dearly loved turned against me in ways I found hard to make sense of. And what made it worse was these difficulties I had were with people I knew from the church I attended. So my confidence in people in general was on edge. I felt like in my time of bereavement, they let me down.

Back in those days I listened to a lot of Gospel music. I loved the black mass choir music, Mahalia Jackson, and some others that had put out music from our own church fellowship. But with my hurting heart I had a difficult time feeling the music that came from- people. So there was no music that made any entry into my heart. I actually remember not having any music at all that soothed me. And that is a big statement because music had always been a great part of my life.

That summer I planned to take my boys on a back packing trip up to the High Sierra Nevada Mountains. I have memories upon memories of trips we took as a family, car camping and back packing trips up to those mountains. Memories of which my mother was such a part. So now I bring my own two boys up to places that I have such fond memories of.

Getting ready for the trip I stopped by the drug store to get a few things, some fishing gear among other things. As I was standing in the checkout line, there was a display that had some cassette

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